Thank you for writing! We need more discussions about this in UX blogs. So many relatable things, especially the part about communicating compassion (yes very hard). I learned to have compassion for myself, and by conducting workshops instead of presenting slides I could do it better. In other words, I give myself a lot of pat on the back after seeing how people move from sympathy to empathy in a workshop. Mostly clients/coworkers start at the sympathy stage (why they want to do user research) and among their stakeholders there are many in the pity stage. Moving them from empathy to compassion is a long road to go.

Would love to hear more from you about your workshops!